


Hero Worship

by whalesong



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 08:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3168254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalesong/pseuds/whalesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raleigh and Chuck have met before. Raleigh was twenty, his brother was still alive, and they were winning. Chuck was fifteen, his mother is dead, and he’s recently joined the Academy. He idolizes Raleigh more than he idolizes his dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ages later and I'm cross-posting this from my "writing" Tumblr (that has not had one piece on it since this).
> 
> Sorry for promising something resembling a series (doing a side-B in Raleigh's POV). At the time I was moving back to Australia for half a year, then I moved back to Scotland and life has been hella busy since.

His dad has taken him on a Jaeger Pilot tour. It’s something the Pan Pacific Defense Corps has organized as a way of celebrating their heroes and boosting the morale of civilians. That’s where he meets Raleigh.

He’s awkward and shy, but Raleigh talks to him. He treats him like an equal, like a _friend_. He coaxes him out of his shell, slowly brings the walls down that he set up after his mum’s death (something that only Mako has been able to do).

They chat about Jaegers and Kaijus, about how they’re winning. They talk about anything and everything. He makes Raleigh laugh, and it’s probably sad that it’s a high point in his life, that he wants to be able to do it again, that he could probably listen to that sound for the rest of his life.

Raleigh claps him on the shoulder when he says goodbye, and smiles affectionately at him, telling him that he should contact him but if he doesn’t hear from him any time soon to keep following his dreams. Raleigh says that he believes he’ll make a great Jaeger Pilot when he graduates.

He misses the warmth of Raleigh’s hand as soon as it leaves his shoulder.

—

He doesn’t contact him, he doesn’t have the time once the tour and his leave’s over. Chuck goes back to training at the Academy, but he follows all of Raleigh’s missions.

He swells with pride every time he wins.

—

Then Yancy Becket dies, and Raleigh just fucking quits the Corps. Disappears off the face of the planet like a bloody _coward_ , and it pisses him off.

—

For four years he doesn’t think about Raleigh, he doesn’t wonder what he’s doing with his wasted life. He just wins.

Jaeger’s and their pilots start falling, start dying. He doesn’t think about them either. About how he served with some of them, how he was friends with them. He _can’t_.

That’s when they start pushing for this wall to be built, for it to be their first line of defence, and dissolve the Jaeger Pilot Corps. Those fucking idiots at the top don’t know what they’re talking about, don’t realize that a wall isn’t going to stop these monsters, that it’ll only make them more determined. If he and his dad weren’t still in Sydney, with the newly decommissioned Striker Eureka, he knows his entire country would be rubble by now.

His dad gets a call from Stacker soon after. He’s close enough to hear the words resistance and Raleigh. Herc gives him a knowing look.

—

Herc Hansen admires Raleigh Becket, probably more so than his son had at fifteen. He’s only one of two people that can fly solo in a Jaeger. For years he’s not been able to mention Becket’s name in front of his kid without him snapping about what a coward he is. So when he gets a call from Stacker about the resistance, and that he’s on a helicopter to find Raleigh Becket, he knows he’s going to have to put up with his son’s constant moaning about it.

—

He’s right. For days he has to listen to Chuck grumble in his ear about what a god-damn liability he is, and how he shouldn’t even be a part of this mission. He even catches him complaining to Max.

—

Chuck wishes _Ra_ leigh would crawl back into whatever hole he came out of.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It starts with his traitorous father inviting him to sit with them. Like he doesn’t fucking know they had met years ago, like he doesn’t remember that he gushed about how cool Raleigh was and how he wanted to be just like him after he graduated. His dad is fucking asshole.

So he pretends he doesn’t know who the hell Raleigh Becket is. He snarks and snarls at him, and he can’t fucking believe that Becket wasted his years away by building whatever shit he was contracted to. Chuck can’t take it anymore, so he stands up and compares Raleigh to Kaiju shit as parting words.

—

To be honest, he doesn’t even think Raleigh remembers him.

—

Yancy’s death has left its mark on Becket. The psychological and physical scars that came with losing his brother mapped out on his body, in the way he holds himself back from getting too close to anyone. Raleigh has his own walls to match Chuck’s. Chuck who immediately built his back up after Raleigh disappeared and now not even Mako can get through.

Which is why he lashes out at the two after they drift.

—

Stupid fucking disgraces to the Corps. They could have gotten them all killed. Who would have stopped the Kaijus then? Fucking _Starfleet?_

It’s when he calls Mako a bitch that he gets a fist to the face. And no he fucking didn’t. Chuck is so not in the wrong in this situation; he didn’t nearly blow the Shutterdome apart because someone couldn’t stay in the moment. They shouldn’t have let a washed-up has-been and a rookie anywhere near a Jaeger together.

So he hits back. Gives as good as he’s got, only apparently it’s not good enough.

_"Apologize."_

Oh, fuck no. He’s not the one that should be apologizing. He’s not the reason they’re in this fucked up situation, he’s not the one that abandoned the Corps.

That’s when his dad and Stacker interrupt. When his dad holds him back and gives him a knowing look. Tells him to start acting like a Ranger.

—

"Go, Gipsy Danger!"

He’s watching Raleigh and Mako beat the hell out of one of the Kaijus that took down the Wei Triplets and Kaidanovskys. His _friends._

So he latches onto the child-like glee of seeing his hero in action, holds onto it for all it’s worth, because he almost lost his dad tonight, too. Watched him being flung across the cockpit like a ragdoll and heard the crunch of bone breaking.

—

He hates the fact that he’s just standing here and doing nothing, wishes he could help out. Being a Ranger is all he’s ever been good at. It’s been the only time, since his mum’s death, that his father has looked at him with something akin to pride.

—

They win. The War Clock is reset.

—

His dad’s out of the game for this round, and finds out that Stacker is going to be the one drifting with him. He doesn’t even think they’ll be drift compatible, but they’re going to have to be because they don’t have any other choice.

—

The plan has changed. It’s going to be a one way trip.

—

They say that life’s too short to wake up with regrets, and Chuck doubts he’ll ever wake up again to have regrets, and he doesn’t want to go to a watery, inter-dimensional grave with them.

He seeks out Raleigh.

He doesn’t fucking care anymore. Doesn’t care if Raleigh hates him, doesn’t care if he doesn’t remember him, he can’t die without doing this. So as soon as Raleigh opens the door he grabs him by the his shirt and brings his mouth down to his.

It’s not the best where first kisses are concerned. His lips are too dry, he nearly missed the fucking mouth in his eagerness to do this, and at first Raleigh doesn’t even react and Chuck thinks, _“shit, maybe I will regret this.”_

Then Raleigh makes this weird strangled noise in his throat, and grabs the material around Chuck’s waist, pulling him into his room, closer to him, and opening his mouth for more access.

In between kisses, and clothes being tugged off, Chuck grumbles about all of Raleigh’s flaws, recycling old insults he’s used against him before. Raleigh just laughs, and God, has Chuck missed that sound.

—

"You were never this mouthy as a kid."

He remembers. The asshole remembers.

"I can show you just how mouthy."


End file.
